The term "Highly Sensitive Person" (HSP) was coined by Dr. Elaine N. Aron (Clinical Psychologist and author) in 1996, and the name is gaining popularity because it presents the trait in a positive light.

A Highly Sensitive Child (HSC) is one of the 15-20% of children born with a nervous system that is highly aware of itself and its surroundings. This makes HSCs quick to grasp subtle changes in a person or their environment, they prefer to reflect deeply before acting and generally behave conscientiously. They are also easily overwhelmed by high levels of stimulation such as loud noise, too much light, extreme weather, being around too many people, environmental toxins, too many activities on their schedule, etc. They are also very aware of sudden changes and the emotional distress of others. They have an active dream life, talk with things in nature, may see aura's or talk about past lives. Click here for a list of 50 traits of HSCs.

Because children are a blend of a number of temperament traits, some HSCs can be labelled by teachers or parents as 'difficult', because they can be physically active, emotionally intense, demanding, and persistent. Other HSCs can be quite calm, turned inward, and almost too easy to raise except when they are expected to join a group of children they do not know, for example at birthday parties or group sports. Both, the outspoken & fussy and the reserved & obedient are sensitive to their emotional and physical environment. In regards to situations they might find overwhelming both types of HSC need to be prepared in advance and they need quiet downtime afterwards.

One way to know if your child is highly sensitive is to complete the online questionnaire by Elaine N. Aron. Another way to know is to read more about the trait and decide for yourself. See below for a few question from the list or click on the photo for the entire questionnaire. If you answered true to 13 or more of the questions, your child is probably highly sensitive.

The HSC in school works differently from others. They pick up on subtleties and may think about them a long time before demonstrating their grasp of a subject. If an HSC is not contributing much to a discussion or activity, it does not necessarily mean he or she does not understand or is too shy.

HSCs often have insights they are afraid to reveal because they differ from the common view (outside-the-box thinking), or because speaking up is too over arousing for them. HSCs are often very conscientious, and gifted with great intelligence, intuition and imagination, but underperform when being evaluated. The HSC is good with details, thoughtful and loyal, but they do tend to work best when conditions are quiet and calm. Because HSCs perform less well when being watched, they may be overlooked in group activities. HSCs tend to socialize less with others, often preferring to process experiences quietly by themselves.

Parents, teachers and the HSC themselves need to know the following:

Being Highly Sensitive is normal. It is found in 15 to 20% of the population. This prevalence in the population means this is too many to be a disorder, but not enough to be well understood by the majority of those around them. So be patient and learn to explain the trait.

It is innate. In fact, biologists have found it to be in most or all animals, from fruit flies and fish to dogs, cats, horses, and primates. This trait reflects a certain type of survival strategy, being observant before acting. The brains of HSCs actually work a little differently than others.

The HSC is more aware than others of subtleties. This is mainly because their brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply. So even if they wear glasses, for example, they see more than others because they notice more.

HSCs are also more easily overwhelmed. If you notice everything, you are naturally going to be overstimulated when things are too intense, complex, chaotic, or novel for a while.

This trait is not a new discovery, but it has been misunderstood. Because HSCs prefer to look before entering new situations, they are often called "shy." But shyness is learned, not innate. In fact, 30% of HSPs are extraverts, although the trait is often mislabeled as introversion. It has also been called inhibitedness, fearfulness, or neuroticism. Some HSCs and adult HSPs behave in these ways, but it is not innate to do so and not the basic trait.

Sensitivity is valued differently in different cultures. In cultures where sensitivity is not highly valued, HSCs tend to develop low self-esteem. They are told "don't be so sensitive" or their classmates might start avoiding them, so they feel abnormal.

Unfortunately, the trait has been somewhat misunderstood in our culture, so that most psychologists and parents tend to see only one aspect of some sensitive children and call this trait shyness, inhibitedness, fearfulness, fussiness, or "hyper" sensitivity. If one could see inside the mind of a sensitive child, however, one would learn the whole story of what is going on... creativity, intuition, surprising wisdom, empathy for others and many more.But, for all of that to blossom, they absolutely must be raised with understanding. Otherwise, as adults they are prone to depression, anxiety, and shyness.

HSCs have a tremendous amount to offer the world. But they do need special handling. They need to be appreciated, to have their special needs and sometimes intense reactions and behaviors understood, and, when correction is needed, they need to be handled with special care so that they do not become anxious or ashamed of their failure.

Again, few parents and teachers understand this trait and as a result, HSCs are often mislabeled as "problem children" (and in some cases, misdiagnosed with disorders such as Attention Deficit Disorder). But raised with proper understanding and care, HSCs are no more prone to problems than nonsensitive children and can grow up to be happy, healthy, unusually well-adjusted and creative adults.

The counseling issues that arise out of visual-spatial learning patterns primarily center around negative self image, the wounding of feeling judged “less than” or different and the frustrations of being unable to perform at the level of their intelligence or the level of other people’s expectations

Negative self image, feelings of being judged, alienation, frustration, resignation and hopelessness are among the painful feeling states that result from visual-spatial learners struggling in auditory-sequential systems. This is often compounded at home, by well-meaning parents endeavoring to enhance their children’s success, and by competing with siblings who may not be similarly challenged. The wounding experiences that produce these feelings tend to occur almost daily, over many years. To protect oneself from pain, each individual formulates generally unconscious strategies of self-defense, a kind of private Homeland Security. Depending on an innate preference for either contracting or expanding in the face of stress or perceived danger, an individual will develop a particular style of dealing with repeated pain. One child will withdraw, or hide, or try to minimize her difficulties. Another may act out overtly, rebelling in chosen ways at school and at home. Feeling angry and helpless, and not having a healthy way to digest these feelings, one might become depressed. Another will adopt an attitude of simply not caring. Ditching school may become an option for a student.

Obviously, each of these adaptations has its negative side effects, which will, eventually, cause considerable difficulties. Left unaddressed, these behaviors can continue to be expressed, in some individuals, well into adulthood. Some people spend their lives reacting to school-age wounds, without dealing with the underlying issues. Dareling hopes, of course, to take a more proactive and creative approach, and to act as early as possible. Counseling is often very effective is assisting growth—provided the clients are motivated.

What enables young people at risk for delinquency to choose a more constructive path? Most likely it is finding something they are good at, that they enjoy doing, and that is seen as valuable by others. Art is often the answer. Art begins with imagery, a function of the right hemisphere. When right-hemispheric gifts are honored and developed, they serve as a protective shield and channel energy in a positive direction. When they are ignored or neglected, children and youth seek other outlets that may be detrimental to themselves and society.

A disconcerting proportion of the delinquent population is gifted and talented. The largest study ever undertaken of gifted delinquents was conducted in the Arapahoe County juvenile court system. The study revealed that 15 percent of incarcerated youth tested in the top 3 percentile on standardized intelligence scales (Harvey & Seeley, 1984; Seeley, 1984, 2003); some estimate that as many as 25% are gifted. Fifteen percent is five times the number of intellectually gifted youth in juvenile hall than would be predicted by chance. The majority exhibited a “fluid” or “spatial” learning style, in which the right hemisphere is favored over the left hemisphere. Such children are often unrecognized as gifted, as sequential methods of instruction fail to reach them.

Underachievement patterns can be reversed when students have long-standing out-of-school creative interests, such as art, and parents are supportive of their children’s interests. Emerick (1992) studied teens who had underachieved for a period of three years and then overcame underachievement, becoming achievers for at least a full year. She found several common themes among them. They all engaged in a creative passion. Their parents maintained positive attitudes toward them, even in the face of academic failure, perceiving the underachievement as temporary, rather than as a permanent pattern. They placed responsibility for homework directly on their children. And they did not deprive their children of their creative work, or make it contingent upon their getting good grades.

Healing

There are two general areas that Dareling addresses in responding to the counseling needs of visual-spatial learners: healing and growth.

By healing, we are referring to meeting internal psychological or developmental needs that were not met earlier. The wounds experienced by visual-spatial learners revolve primarily around not feeling competent and effective and with not feeling that “I am ok the way I am.” While the needs for the feelings of competence, effectiveness and “ok-ness” is life long, developmentally those needs become particularly important between the ages of four and seven. Those are the ages when children naturally develop their sense of competence.

The arts have always served as the area in which many at-risk students could feel successful in school. As the arts have been removed from schools, being deemed “a frill” that is dispensable during tight budgetary times, at-risk students are in greater jeopardy. It is essential to support extra-curricular art programs as a means of preventing underachievement, school dropouts and delinquent behavior.

Art is the sanctuary, the emotional healer, the ray of hope for the at-risk, visual-spatial thinker.

Back in 1991, Dr. J. Andrew Armour, introduced the idea of the heart brain. He discovered that the heart has a sophisticated nervous system that is complex enough to allow the heart to be considered a little brain.Contained within this heart’s brain, are an intricate network of numerous neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins and other support cells just like the ones of the brain. This complex mechanism allows it to act independently of the cranial brain.The heart brain contains around 40,000 neurons, known as sensory neurites which monitor and detect the pumping action but that may not be all they do.

Listen to your heart!

Many believe that conscious awareness originates in the brain alone. Recent scientific research suggests that consciousness actually emerges from the brain and body acting together. A growing body of evidence suggests that the heart plays a particularly significant role in this process.

Research in the new discipline of neurocardiology shows that the heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated center for receiving and processing information. The nervous system within the heart (or “heart brain”) enables it to learn, remember, and make functional decisions independent of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Moreover, numerous experiments have demonstrated that the signals the heart continuously sends to the brain influence the function of higher brain centers involved in perception, cognition, and emotional processing.

The heart also communicates information to the brain and throughout the body via electromagnetic field interactions. The heart generates the body’s most powerful and most extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field. Compared to the electromagnetic field produced by the brain, the electrical component of the heart’s field is about 60 times greater in amplitude, and permeates every cell in the body. The magnetic component is approximately 5000 times stronger than the brain’s magnetic field and can be detected several feet away from the body with sensitive magnetometers.

Basic research at the Institute of HeartMath shows that information pertaining to a person’s emotional state is also communicated throughout the body via the heart’s electromagnetic field. The rhythmic beating patterns of the heart change significantly as we experience different emotions. Negative emotions, such as anger or frustration, are associated with an erratic, disordered, incoherent pattern in the heart’s rhythms. In contrast, positive emotions, such as love or appreciation, are associated with a smooth, ordered, coherent pattern in the heart’s rhythmic activity. Experiments conducted at the Institute of HeartMath have found remarkable evidence that the heart’s electromagnetic field can transmit information between people. We have been able to measure an exchange of heart energy between individuals up to 5 feet apart. We have also found that one person’s brain waves can actually synchronize to another person’s heart.

More specifically, we have demonstrated that sustained positive emotions appear to give rise to a distinct mode of functioning, which we call psychophysiological coherence. At the physiological level, this mode is characterized by increased efficiency and harmony in the activity and interactions of the body’s systems. Psychologically, this mode is linked with a notable reduction in internal mental dialogue, reduced perceptions of stress, increased emotional balance, and enhanced mental clarity, intuitive discernment, and cognitive performance.

In sum, our research suggests that psychophysiological coherence is important in enhancing consciousness, both for the body’s sensory awareness of the information required to execute and coordinate physiological function, and also to optimize emotional stability, mental function, and intentional action.

Emotional memories of traumatic life events are stored in a particular way by the brain. For many of us, our deepest memories are mental snapshots taken during times of high emotional impact or involvement. When someone experiences something traumatic, the memory is stored, in random bits and pieces, in the right hemisphere of the brain instead of in the left hemisphere like normal memories. These unprocessed memories are stored in the brain in a 'raw' form where they can be continually re-evoked when experiencing events that are similar to the original experience. They are stored in the brain with all the sights, sounds, thoughts and feelings that accompany it. This explains why people usually cannot recollect the full memory of the traumatic experience and it also explains why people do not like to talk about it. This is because it doesn't make them feel any better! Talking is an activity that accesses the left hemisphere, not the right.

Therefore, the negative thoughts and feelings of the traumatic event are trapped in the nervous system. Since the brain cannot process these emotions, the experience and/or its accompanying feelings are often suppressed from consciousness. However, the distress lives on in the nervous system where it causes disturbances in the emotional functioning of the person.

The right side is the hemisphere that does more intuitive thinking and is more fantasy oriented. So drawing, painting, singing, and any other form of artistic expression for that matter, does access the right side hemisphere. In fact, Art Therapy facilitates communication between the right and left hemispheres, by guiding the right brain process of the client through left brain instructions from the therapist, allowing the brain to process the traumatic experience as a normal memory. This is why, even if the client never talks about the experience, they do feel better after an Art Therapy session. The traumatic experience slowly becomes a normal memory instead of a trauma and the negative effect the trauma had on the person's emotional life slowly disappears.

About a week ago, on September 20th 2012, I gave a presentation at the St. Elisabeth Hospital here in Curacao. I wanted to tell the specialists of the Pediatrics Department about the importance of Art as a therapeutic tool in a setting such as theirs.

I have to admit, I had my doubts about wanting to offer Art Therapy in such an environment. I know I would have a lot of trouble being around children who are suffering. It makes me feel very helpless. But then, when I heard other art therapists talk about working in Children's Hospitals I started to understand that something like this is absolutely not about me. I did some further research, which convinced me even more about the importance of art therapy for children in hospitals.

So.. my presentation started out "very well". My old laptop was not about to make it easy for me when it decided it was not going to be friends with the overhead projector. When the presentation was projected on the screen it wasn't visible on my laptop, which is where my text was. So I had to improvise. Luckily we are very good at that here in Curacao.

In the end, the presentation really did go very well and I achieved what I set out to do, convince the specialists!

The Chief of Clinic promised to get me in touch with the social worker of the department.

Let's keep our fingers crossed to see what can come out of this!

If you are interested in a free presentation for your group of friends or team of colleagues, please get in touch!

I recently found out there's a term for people, like myself, who have grown up in several countries outside of their 'passport country'. We are called Third Culture Kid. The term Third Culture Kid was coined in the early 1950s by American sociologist and anthropologist Ruth Hill Useem.

Here on Curacao we often meet expats and other people who have moved to this island with their whole family. Parents, as well as teachers, peers and counselors, often don't realize the long term effects of such a move on the children. This is why I thought it might be important to share this information with you.

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

TCKs tend to have more in common with one another, regardless of nationality, than they do with non-TCKs from their passport country. TCKs are often multilingual and highly accepting of other cultures. Although moving between countries may become an easy thing for some TCKs, after a childhood spent in other cultures, adjusting to their passport country often takes years.

They often suffer a reverse culture shock upon their return, and are often perpetually homesick for their adopted country. Many third culture kids face an identity crisis: they don't know where they come from. It would be typical for a TCK to say that he is a citizen of a country, but with nothing beyond his passport to define that identification for him. Such children usually find it difficult to answer the question, "Where are you from?" Compared to their peers who have lived their entire lives in a single culture, TCKs have a globalized culture. Others can have difficulty relating to them. It is hard for TCKs to present themselves as a single cultured person, which makes it hard for others who have not had similar experiences to accept them for who they are. Many choose to enter careers that allow them to travel frequently or live overseas, which may make it seem difficult for TCKs to build long-term, in-depth relationships.

As third culture kids mature they become adult third culture kids (ATCKs). Some ATCKs come to terms with issues such as culture shock and a sense of not belonging while others struggle with these for their entire lives.

Research has been done on American TCKs to identify various characteristics:

Sociopsychology

90% feel "out of sync" with their peers.

90% report feeling as if they understand other people and cultural groups better than the average American.

80% believe they can get along with anybody, and they often do, due to their sociocultural adaptability.

Divorce rates among TCKs are lower than the general population, but TCKs marry at an older age (25+).

More welcoming of others into their community.

Lack a sense of "where home is", but are often nationalistic.

Cognitive and emotional development

Teenage TCKs are more mature than non-TCKs, but in their twenties take longer than their peers to focus their aims.

Depression is comparatively prevalent among TCKs.

TCKs' sense of identity and well-being is directly and negatively affected by repatriation.

TCKs are highly linguistically adept (not as true for military TCKs).

A study whose subjects were all "career military brats" those who had a parent in the military from birth through high school shows that brats are linguistically adept.

Like all children, TCKs may experience stress and even grief from the relocation experience.

Education and career

TCKs are 4 times as likely as non-TCKs to earn a bachelor's degree (81% vs 21%).

40% earn an advanced degree (as compared to 5% of the non-TCK population).

45% of TCKs attended three universities before attaining a degree.

44% earned undergraduate degree after the age of 22.

Education, medicine, business management, self-employment, and highly-skilled positions are the most common professions for TCKs.

TCKs are unlikely to work for big business, government, or follow their parents' career choices. "One won't find many TCKs in large corporations. Nor are there many in government ... they have not followed in parental footsteps".